On The Road Again: Car sharing with CARGURU

In a classic example of moving from products to services, Latvia’s CARGURU is changing how we share cars – and how we treat our cities. All with the help with Tele2 IoT connectivity.

Owning a car in the city can be costly and inefficient: finding a parking space, paying for insurance, tolls, gas, maintenance – it’s often a burden where the benefits do not outweigh the drawbacks. Enter Latvian startup CARGURU, which is taking the pain out of owning an urban car, by offering on-demand car rentals via an app.

“What we’ve done is change the concept of ‘owning’ a car,” says Vladimirs Reskajs, Founder of CARGURU. “Users simply download our app, sign up to CARGURU, then they’re ready to start scanning the map for available cars, which are located throughout the city. It’s that simple.”

CARGURU users can rent a car for ten minutes or ten hours, with the price based solely on how long they have the car. Everything else – fuel, parking, insurance, maintenance – are included in the price. Even better, the cars address environmental concerns on two levels.

“First, car-sharing means less cars on the streets and therefore less emissions clogging up our city air,” explains Vladimirs Reskajs. “Secondly, all of our cars are hybrids, which means less fossil fuel being burned.”

Currently there are about 100 cars available across Latvia’s capital city of Riga, and CARGURU is able to keep control of its fleet with the help of Tele2 IoT connectivity – and also keep it secure.

“Our operations are dependent on having the best possible connectivity,” says Vladimirs. “With Tele2 IoT, if the connection to the cars isn’t good our SIMs switch over to another mobile operator that offers a better connection. This is critical to our operations, because they are dependent on the network.

That connectivity isn’t just for customers to use the car sharing service. It also gives CARGURU vital information, such as location, speed, distance, fuel consumption, and also allows predictive maintenance to take place. The data is telling them what is happening and what needs to be done and then CARGURU can react in a timely manner, ensuring their end customers don’t run into trouble on the road.

CARGURU currently operates in Riga but has plans for expansion first into Estonia and then into other European countries, as well as eventually Asia.

“As we expand Tele2 IoT’s connectivity will be a main partner,” says Vladimirs. “The expansion will mean our cars will be crossing borders and the Tele2 IoT roaming agreements will help smooth this transition.”

Tele2 IoT and CARGURU: hitting the road together.